SA Minutes from the 2013-2014 Session

I. Call to Order  

II. Roll Call 

III. Approval of Minutes 

IV. Legislation 

Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching – Shaurya Agarwal, Ravi Sheth 

His name is Shaurya 

Got a bunch of feedback 

Met with Brian Gibson and Steve Cox 

Let’s look at the changes! 

CTE: 1à 2 people 

That’s what they wanted 

CTE has no enforcing power, so we changed CTE to Provost, Committee of Deans, and Department Chairs 

People who make the decision 

Reviews should be taken into consideration! 

Department chairs are there to protect their own 

Reviews are now in the Midterm Review 

Cox: “Grad students are teaching, and a lot more conversation needs to be had on this.” 

Hopefully grad students will be made to go through summer courses by great professors 

We can be like Brown (University) 

We are hoping for drop reviews as well so those who drop can provide feedback 

Everything else is the same. 

Questions: 

How will you follow up? 

Senator will be assigned to this project 

What are we accomplishing by resolving to resolve something at a later date? 

Doesn’t cause any harm, but looks silly. 

What will we do with the feedback gathered? 

We don’t know what we will do yet. 

What is follow up? 

Senator will meet with people like David Tenny to try to make this happen. 

How are we going to tell them to do things? 

Matters for what are we doing.  

People will have to listen to the students 

Does this really address tenured professors that are not trying? 

Most of these points affect tenured profs as well 

Once a professor is established enough, it cannot really affect them that much. 

Can we do it that we will make a resolution later when we have more data? 

V. Discussion: On Recent Allegations of Discrimination in Athletics 

Factual Situational Overview  – The Rice Thresher 

Rachel Marcus and Molly Chu! 

They will go over what they know right now 

Article broke on Friday 

Waivers were made in the fall 

Waivers were based in allegations that Greenspan was racially discriminating 

Student privacy does not allow Thresher to get reports 

Rice released statement that they do not believe the allegations are true 

Rice did receive letter from NCAA that the waiver was simply granted on player’s perception. 

Rice hired someone to investigate the situation and they did not find anything 

Player does hope to come back and walk. 

Hardship waiver allowed them to play this current season 

This allows them to leave terrible situations 

Spoke with Rice officials and they do want to protect the students, so they would do something if they think these allegations were true. 

Questions 

Third party didn’t find anything? 

NO 

How did SI get the waiver? 

We can only speculate 

Coach that left and the players that left might actually have given it to SI 

What is the point now of discussing this? 

We are trying to make sure people understand the objective facts and that sentiments can be expressed to the lawyer, Greenspan, and whoever else it applies to. 

Hopefully trying to show that some students are affected by this in some way. 

Only the Thresher and this forum are investigating this. 

No basketball players have been interviewed. 

If you have any things you want to express, email Rachel and Molly 

Lawsuit is still going on. 

Decision to sue Rice has not been reached. 

It was filed back in November. 

These 2 waiver players left a little. 

Not all these were hardship waivers from players of the same ethnicity. 

Arsalan has enough credits to get the rice degree, and that is all he wants because that degree is better. 

Any anecdotal evidence? 

Not that they have received. 

Open Forum 

It is disconcerting that we build are culture around diversity and supporting athletes and then something like this would happen. 

These 2 players were respected on the floor, but this particular speaker believes the allegations are true and this should not happen just because rice is not as big in sports. We are almost too conservative in stuff like this. She thinks that there is enough evidence to take action on this. 

Greenspan left Indiana because of controversy there, so that should be taken into consideration. 

Things should not be swept under the rug just because the university is more concerned with their athletic reputation. 

Rice should be more concerned with student athletes rather than just the reputation. 

Rice saw the waiver during the whole process. 

Both waivers were approved. 

Oregon was essentially the organization to submit the waiver. 

NCAA did not investigate here. 

Can students have access to Rice’s investigation papers? 

We can’t access it because it is a personnel thing. 

Rice cannot really release it publicly. 

It does make sense for the guys team not to comment, but this is not the only situation. Speaker wants to speak about how all these coaches and trainers left because they do not like Greenspan. It’s frustrating to see nothing being done about Greenspan. Rice is not asking the right people. 

Have those people ever commented to people other than athletes?    

Have not made these comments officially. 

If these waivers were submitted and approved, does NCAA have obligation to act on it. 

Waivers are submitted by schools they transferred to, so it is just like legislative relief. 

It is more about student’s perception, more than facts. 

Investigating would be a separate process. 

Who can athletes complain to? Are there avenues in Rice that allow students to complain about employees? 

Hutch: Go to Mr Barnes about racial issues. 

Hutch is also a resource. 

Rumors were going around about this before in the Athletics Department, so they are sure that this is true. 

We should evaluate beyond just this, like how he deals with women and other groups. 

SA will meet with Hutch, and then PR and other groups to disseminate this info in a sensitive manner. 

We will be in contact with the appropriate Athletics reps. 

Thresher is also acting as a voice for the students 

More collective feedback 

We should show public support for these players because they probably do not realize all the support they have. 

Concern for why they took so long to leave, why they seemed so supportive up to that point, etc. If something happened this last semester we should try to find it. 

When coaches get good players, they do not want to leave. Players have to pass a certain breaking point before they can file hardship waiver. 

VI. Announcements 

Pancakes for Parkinson’s is this Saturday!